University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 1998 Power of memory and the presence of a collective history in Holocaust literature| Analysis of Jewish and German perspectives Susan M. Morse The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Morse, Susan M., "Power of memory and the presence of a collective history in Holocaust literature| Analysis of Jewish and German perspectives" (1998). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 3271. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/3271 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Maureen and Mike MANSFIELD LIBRARY The University of MONTANA Permission is granted by the author to reproduce this material in its entirety, provided that this material is used for scholarly purposes and is properly cited in published works and reports. ** Please check "Yes" or "No" and provide signature ** Yes, I grant permission No, I do not grant permission Author's Signature Date \\ ^ Any copying for commercial purposes or financial gain may be undertaken only with the author's explicit consent. The Power of Memory and the Presence of a Collective History in Holocaust Literature: Analysis of Jewish and German Perspectives by Susan M. Morge B.A. The University of Montana, 1989 presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts The University of Montana 1998 Appro3i«d by: Chairperson Date UMI Number: EP35891 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT DtaMtttion PlisMiing UMI EP35891 Published by ProQuest LLC (2012). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest' ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Morse, Susan., M.A., May 1998 German Language and Literature The Power of Memory and the Presence of a Collective History in Holocaust Literature: Analysis of Jewish and German Perspectives (133 pp.) Director: Gerald Fetz In this thesis I undertake an analysis of the power of memory and the presence of a collective history in Holocaust literature from a Jewish and a German perspective. The introduction outlines the long history of Jewish persecution in Germany and in Europe leading up to the Holocaust. I then discuss the need for Jewish survivors to bear witness to atrocities perpetrated against their people in an effort to preserve Jewish history and the need for German writers to confront the shame and disgrace resulting from Germany's recent past. I also highlight some of the problematic issues of creating a genre of Holocaust literature, and I describe common themes and struggles faced by writers trying to preserve and confront memory. Some of these themes are: spiritual resistance, the burden of memory and survival, bearing witness, (breaking) silence, guilt, collective identity, and confronting the past. The body of this thesis deals with Holocaust literature from a Jewish perspective. I chose three well-known Jewish authors whose experiences and connections to Judaism varied greatly from one another. Primo Levi was an assimilated Italian Jew who had a distant connection to Judaism and who never experienced racism until World War II. His memories and writings differ from Jean Amery's, an assimilated Austrian Jew whose works reflect the difficulties he experienced as a German-speaking Holocaust survivor who never identified with Judaism. In the final chapter I explore the life and writings of Elie Wiesel, an Orthodox Jew whose works reflect struggles with faith, with God, and with the goodness of man. In order to provide a point of comparison, in the conclusion I discuss common German reactions to the Holocaust and explore the difficulties Germans had confronting memory and their connection to a collective identity. I highlight the major themes in a discussion of how personal experiences affected the works of the German writers Martin Walser and Giinter Grass. Walser's writings address the German need to confront the past in order to recognize the dangers of competition, apathy, and the abuse of power fimdamental to the success of Nazi Fascism. Grass criticizes the lack of resistance to the Nazi movement. He strongly feels that such an atrocity is a threat in a country whose citizens refuse to confront their past and who refuse to speak out against injustice. Memory and collective identity inspired many of the issues addressed in their socially critical works, just as the power of memory and past experience motivated the themes in Jewish writing. -ii- Preface My interest in Germany and the literature of the Holocaust is deeply rooted in my own German heritage. Being the daughter of a German citizen, I grew up listening to my Oma (grandmother) and my Xante (my great-aunt) reminisce and recount the weeks prior to the beginning of their new lives in Kochel am See southwest of Munich. Xhey talked about the difficulties they encountered prior to and following the end of the war. Every year when I visited I would learn a little bit more about the horrible night when my family was informed that they had thirty minutes to pack fifty pounds of their belongings before walking down the streets of their hometown for the very last time. Every year I gained fiirther insight into how hard and desperate the post-war years were for those who were transplanted into new communities, for those who were starving and poor, and for those left with broken families at the end of the war. I was told how my mom, who was four years old, took a train every day to the neighboring villages to try to find food, and how the family sometimes only had a loaf of bread and a small piece of cheese, or maybe a bit of potato to eat. Every year I heard stories about how Oma and Xante worked long hours in factory-like conditions to eventually save enough money to establish their own business to provide as best they could for my mother and my aunt. It seemed like no matter where we were in Germany or Austria, whether we were shopping, out to dinner, at a Seefest, or visiting fiiends, something triggered a memory of those days of hardship. Not a single evening went by without my Oma or Xante telling a story about damals, back then. And it wasn't typical only of my family. All of our fiiends and neighbors had very similar memories, and they all had the similar need to re-tell and -iii- compare their memories with those around them. With each visit I was reminded again and again how important it was for older Germans like my Oma or Xante, those who really struggled to survive the war years, to relive those painful times through personal and shared memories. Those reminders led me to the fiirther realization that in all of those years I had never heard my mom or my aunt ever talk about any childhood or early adolescent memories: no school days, no biking accidents, none of the usual childhood experiences. And what's more is that never in all of those visits has anyone in my family ever mentioned the Holocaust. Nor have I heard any of our fiiends or neighbors ever comment about that part of the war, that part of Germany's history. A few summers ago I took a group of my High School German students to Dachau. My family was shocked and appalled. Why would I want to take my students there when there are so many beautiful things to see in Bavaria? How could I think of doing such a thing? That same summer I asked my Tante about what she knew and what she thought about the Jewish tragedy. She told me that they did not know, that their friends and neighbors did not know, that it had all been kept very secret. On the radio it was announced that the Jews were being moved to holding areas and would then be resettled. She told me that her initial reaction to that announcement made around 1939 was one of envy and resentment. She thought they were gomg someplace with food and security, a place free from the poverty and starvation my family was experiencing. After news of the devastation was made known m the weeks following liberation of the camps, she could not believe it was possible, that it even happened. She told me that -iv- even if they (the German citizens) had known, they would have been powerless to stop the chain of events. In an attempt to understand the past, Xante has spent the last fifty years of her life reading every biography and autobiography published that tell the stories and memories of Germans who survived the war years and who were able to start over. She finds comfort in the similar memories of others. None of the books that she reads, however, tell the stories or memories of Jewish survivors.